Two weeks after Christmas, skeletons and flashing pumpkins hanging on a mailbox downthe street:a sandwich of elbow-teeth.

Tell me I am not a ghost.Let my flesh grow old and crumble like a clusterfuck of sorrow.

I stay away from humans.Hallucination is real. What are the benefits of escape?I seek refugeat the ocean’s shore.

The ocean greets the beach with waves: impossible to pay our debts. Panic flowers like a kiss: tedious and brief. There will be nights when I will be lonely.I am related by blood to the sea.

Stuart Gunter lives in Schuyler, Virginia, where he reads, writes, paddles the Rockfish River, and plays drums in obscure rock bands. His work has appeared in Broad Street, Whurk, Waxing & Waning,and The Artemis Journal, among others.